An application of importance satisfaction analysis (ISA) method in improving the internship programme for Malaysia Higher Learning Institution

Nowadays most of the university students are required to undergo internship as a requirement before graduation.Internship is very important for students to practice what they have learned in the classroom.During internship students are exposed to the actual situation of how to deal with customers and suppliers which can provide added value to the students.In the choice of company for internship, students also consider a number of things such as internship allowances, work environment, interesting work, stable work shift and other fridge benefits.Study on the importance and satisfaction of students is important to improve the internship program.Importance means how students feel important to the attributes and satisfaction means how students feel after undergoing internship.The aim of this study is to investigate the gaps between students’ important and satisfaction on the internship programme and to identify the internship experience factors that need to be improved.Gap analysis has been used to show the difference between how important attributes are to the studentss and how satisfied they are with those attributes. Result shows that the attributes that has high importance and satisfaction to the students are good peer relationship, broad work experience, competitive fringe benefits, interesting work, work environment, sufficient supervisory support, appreciation and praise from manager, feeling of being a team members, able to identify self-strength and able to develop technical skills. In contrast, three attributes are considered importance but low satisfaction.These attributes are internship allowances, opportunity for self-development, and able to develop interests through practice